Can't Change Your Stride
by Trogdor19
Summary: My version of how a Caryl reunion in 7x10 should go. "You changed your boots, can't change your stride." *Spoilers through 7x09, Rock in the Road*
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: Fair warning, this will be a little less polished than my usual. I like to do several editing passes before I post, but I can't do that and get this out before Real 7x10 happens, so…_

 _Setup for this contains spoilers through 7x09. I know nothing about what happens in 7x10 so everything past 7x09 is just what I imagine might happen._

 _This fic is for Joanna-484 who said something I really needed to hear, at exactly the moment I needed to hear it, even though she had no idea that's what she was doing. Your words make a difference in this world, my friends. Even when you don't realize it's happening._

* * *

 **Can't Change Your Stride**

Her tracks were all over the damn forest. A spiderweb of them dotted with the bodies of walkers. Sometimes animal blood or fur from a skinned kill, the discarded guts long gone to more walkers. The tracks got thicker and thicker in one direction, until they all converged on one little house. Thing had a graveyard. And a mailbox.

Daryl couldn't figure out which bothered him most. Who the fuck buried their dead right out in the front yard, before? And why the shit did this place still have a mailbox? Looked so fucking normal, at first he couldn't even bring himself to open the gate. Like it was somebody's house, 'n they'd wanna know what a damn Dixon was doing prowling around.

Wasn't that far off. He wasn't welcome here. First time he hadn't been welcome where Carol was since her husband died. He didn't like the feeling.

He grabbed the top of the fence and yanked himself up, then stuck a boot in between the narrow iron spines, smearing mud across the wrought iron. Already messing stuff up and he hadn't been here five minutes.

 _She wanted to get away from us. From everyone._

But fuck it. What else was he gonna do? Sit around and watch the kiddies shoot arrows when he didn't have no bow? Go back and growl at that king on his fucking stage with his great big cat? Thing might as well be a tabby for all the balls it lent the guy.

Daryl didn't know why that asshole had let him stay. They didn't like each other much. Made him twitchy, wondering. So he had borrowed a knife and got himself gone within an hour of Rick 'n them leaving. Figured he'd start casting around for the start of Carol's trail. Or whatever was left of it, so he could mark her direction and follow it once this shit with Negan was over. He needed to know she was whole, okay. And if she wasn't okay, she was alone. Nobody who loved her to put her down. He wouldn't leave her to walk, forever.

Hadn't expected the tracks to be so fresh. Hadn't expected there to be so many of them. She was gone, alright. But she hadn't gone far.

Maybe he oughta wait and puzzle out what that meant, but he couldn't force himself to be still long enough. There'd been a clock tick-tick-ticking in his head ever since he cracked open the door to his cell. Negan was coming after him, and he had more guns and more men than Daryl had seen in one place since the turn. There weren't no time left to fuck around. And he could still hear Denise in his head, shouting at him to deal with his shit. Just like she had been, right up until the last second she was alive.

He knocked, but he would have busted straight in if he thought for an instant she wouldn't shoot first and recognize him second.

The door came open, and as soon as her gaze locked onto his, her eyes went slick with tears, her hand leaping to her mouth.

"God _damn_ it, Morgan," she gritted out, half-turning away.

"You ask him to lie for ya?"

She took a breath, her shoulders that drawn-back sort of brittle as she stared off into her house.

"He said you was gone. Didn't say how far. Looked guilty." Daryl shrugged. "Even if he said nothin', woulda found you anyhow, soon as I went outside. Changed your boots, cain't change your stride."

Her eyes squeezed a little tighter at the corners. She still didn't look at him. He kept his feet planted on her porch. Tried to look like he had any fucking clue in the world what he'd do if she asked him to leave.

"Said you didn't want to see nobody. I get it."

"Do you?" she said tartly. "Because it doesn't look like it."

"Don't want to get pulled into our shit." He didn't blink. "Don't want me to get ya killed."

Her chest jumped under a sharp breath. She wore a delicate white tank top under a looser denim shirt that didn't quite cover the quiver of her body beneath. He watched her body language, since she wouldn't give him words. Her knife rode her hip, had a gun on the other. That was something, too. She hadn't given up yet. And she wasn't lying to herself about the world, like Morgan.

"I didn't leave because of Denise." Her voice was softer now, more like her.

"Rick said ya left right after that. I's drinkin'. Was a mess."

His fists knotted at his sides and he fought the urge to go, disappear into those fucking trees so her looking at him wouldn't make his skin feel so dirty. His daddy's shirts used to stick to his chest, with that one spot where Southern Comfort would dribble when he fell asleep with the bottle propped on his belly. Daryl could feel the same spot on his chest and he told himself his shirt was sticking from honest sweat, but it didn't feel like it.

"Ain't drank since," he said baldly.

"That's not why." Her fingers curled against the doorframe and she leaned against it a little, the curves of her body more their old grace than the stubborn straight lines of a moment ago. But tired.

She looked at him, looked away.

"I just don't want to be responsible. For all of you. I love you too much." Her voice went tight. "There's nothing I wouldn't do, and I can't do those things anymore. You of all people should understand that."

"Think I'm askin' you to look after me?"

She met his eyes. "You and I both know you'd never have to ask."

He shifted his weight, coughed at the tickle in his throat, but couldn't kick it loose. "Ain't askin' you to come back. Not now. Ain't safe. Best you're off over here. Out of it."

She crossed her arms, fully leaning against the doorframe now. The wind swept through the yard and riffled her silver hair against her forehead. "Then why are you here?"

He couldn't tell her why he didn't come before. Couldn't tell her why he needed so badly to see her now. Because she was right, he wouldn't have to ask—all he'd have to do was tell her what had happened since she left and she'd be back in the fight. The safe bubble she had here would be gone. Everything she didn't want to ever do again, she'd be doing it by nightfall.

Those new boots weren't any disguise at all.

"Worried about ya," he said instead. "Missed ya."

It was true as hell. It'd been burning a hole through his brain ever since he didn't see her in that circle the night they met Negan and Lucille. The group had the RV and Maggie was sick as shit. They'd obviously been taking her to the doc at Hilltop and there was no way Carol would stay behind when she was the closest thing they had to a midwife. Especially not when the roads were so dangerous.

The day Negan dragged him back to Alexandria, he couldn't breathe for wanting her to be there, alive. And for wanting to trade _anything_ else in the world for her not to be there, so she'd never see him kept like Negan's fucking pet dog.

He realized he was staring at her boots and lifted his gaze. He was free. He wasn't kneeling no more. Not even for a second, not even with his eyes.

She was chewing on the inside of her lip, her eyes wet. A tear was starting to wick into the tiny crow's feet at the edges of her eyes.

He didn't know what to say. He wanted to come in, but she wasn't asking.

His guts wrung uneasily, and all the gastric gymnastics knocked free a deep, throaty grumble from his stomach.

"Sorry," he muttered. He couldn't seem to eat enough since he got out of the Saviors' compound. A sandwich a day was plenty to live on but it was like his anger was torching through every scrap of sustenance he could find, his muscles twitching like they were growing by the hour, impatient to be put to use against Negan and his men.

Carol smiled. "C'mon." She stepped back. "You can at least eat before you go. I have plenty and unless Rick's gotten to be a lot better farmer, it's been a while since you had fresh fruit that wasn't an apple."

"Rick ain't no farmer."

His stride across the threshold was too fast and he had to jerk to a stop to keep from colliding with Carol's back. But she didn't comment, just led the way inside.

She opened a side door and retrieved a few pieces of fruit—stuff he hadn't seen since grocery stores—and carried it into the kitchen. He thought about offering to help, but Carol had her own rhythm in the kitchen and she rarely so much as let him chop anything, even though he hated not having something to do with his hands.

Instead he wandered through the living room, squinting at the floral couch, the ruffled curtains. He'd never been inside a house that was just Carol's before. He squinted at a picture of misshapen, cartoony birds and fruit.

"How long you been here?"

"A few weeks."

He snorted.

"Decorating hasn't been my highest priority," she said dryly.

The living room was clean, neat except for the drips of wax on a piece of cardboard laid beneath the wall-mounted candles. Two books rested on the coffee table next to an empty mug with brown dregs in it. Maybe whiskey. Probably tea.

"Quiet round here." He picked up one of the books, but it looked like something his grandma would read. Something boring enough he'd rather sleep, about people talking and talking and acting rich and depressed.

"Quiet enough to read," she said as if she'd been watching what he was doing, though when he glanced back, her eyes were focused on her mixing bowl. "Ezekiel keeps the walkers to a minimum, near the Kingdom."

"Playing king," he said derisively. He and his friends used to do the same thing, in the woods out back of their house. Gave it up when he was about six, and realized no Dixon was ever gonna be king of anything.

"He plays at being a king," Carol said, "but he's dead serious about looking after his people."

Daryl came closer to the kitchen. He wouldn't have figured Carol'd have any use for a puffed up idiot talking like he was in a kid's play. But then, Ezekiel's people were always training, even the kids. The walls were strong, the gardens bursting, the streets clean. More'n he could say for Alexandria right now.

She peeked up at him. "I laughed, too. When I first met him."

"Talks like an asshole."

A laugh jumped out of her, but she turned away and he couldn't tell how long the smile had lasted on her face. "Do you want meat or fruit?"

Both. He wanted both, in piles. Everything went down easier than that dog food and stale bread, and anything Carol made would taste like it was served straight off an angel's wing. "Don't matter. Whatever you can spare."

She turned a peach over in her hand. "How's Maggie?" She didn't look at him.

"You really wanna know?"

She sighed. "No."

He spun a chair around, sat backwards in it. If she knew, it would eat at her. If she didn't know, she'd wonder. In his cell, he'd had his fill of both. "Baby's okay," he said.

She nodded.

He propped his arms on the back of the chair and stared at her. Weren't no point in pretending like he wasn't and the sight of her kept catching him off guard with how _real_ it was.

All that time, stuck in that cell waiting for Negan to kill him, he'd wanted one goddamn thing.

He'd wanted _more._

Just like Negan and his fucking goons. It wasn't just about getting by. Just wasn't. It was about getting it all. Difference was, he didn't want other people's stuff. He wanted his own.

He wanted more time. A family. Or hell, at least people who'd back him up the way Rick had. Rick'd been coming after him. He knew it, never had to ask. That's why he was at Hilltop, under the radar with all his best fighters. Rick had tried the peaceful way, too. Swallowed his pride and asked in front of everybody if Daryl could come home.

And the devil drag him down to hell, but he couldn't do the same. Couldn't beg. Not even for that, not even right after Rick'd done it for him.

Still, wasn't his pride he missed in that cell. Was everything he never had the guts to reach for, back when he was free. The beautiful woman slicing nectarines in this kitchen. A home that really felt like one, not all this borrowed shit with birds on the walls or the houses back in Alexandria with kitchen counters that looked like bank floors. A name he made his own. Not just another fucked up Dixon like his Daddy, or even his brother.

 _Daryl_ wasn't nobody but him, but it meant little enough and that was his fault. When he burned the Saviors to the ground, everybody was gonna know what that fucking name meant. Because he wasn't going to shove anybody's faces in the ashes, drag out their tears and cash them in for food. They were going to see him win, know he could have stomped on their necks like Negan had, and instead, he was gonna walk away. He'd be back here before the fire went out, to try and start a future he could be proud of.

If he was still alive.

In that cell, he figured he had a week, maybe less. Now? Maybe less'n that. But Abraham had once asked him, "You ever think about settling down?" and he thought the man was crazy. Not here, not now in the midst of all this shit. As it turned out, Abraham hadn't had much time left at all, but even in that little bit, he'd had more _life_ than Daryl had ever managed. Not one, but two beautiful women to cry over his grave.

He'd been somebody. Not like Daryl.

And now, Daryl wanted more.

His ideas about what that meant had been all tangled up with Carol. Except now that he was here, she didn't want more. Hell, she didn't even want the little they'd already had.

She had turned her back on him. First for Tobin, and then for nothing. The empty, walker-infested hell of the open road. She'd done what he told Merle was impossible—survived in this world without a single other person.

He stood up, his knees popping with the abrupt movement. "Imma go."

Her face went from relaxed to stricken in an instant. "What? But you haven't eaten."

"You wanna be alone. Shoulda listened."

"Daryl!" She'd come halfway around the kitchen island and he stopped in the doorway to the living room. Turned back.

He looked straight into her eyes. Nothing hidden. He'd be dead soon, or Negan would be. Most likely both.

"I know what I want," he said clearly. "Ain't what you want. Ain't Ed. Won't just take it."

Her hand rose, shaking, to her throat. "I can't go back with you," she whispered, achingly.

Daryl took a step forward, his heart pounding so hard it swung black shadows across the edge of his vision. He was so damn hungry. "Not yet. But it'll be safe again soon. Won't have to do nothin' you don't wanna."

He'd find enough dynamite to blow a hole in the state of Virginia and he was done sparing people who could come back to haunt him. He'd clean out the whole fucking east coast before he brought her home again.

He'd worked enough odd jobs before the turn; he knew where the explosives got hid. Mining camps, construction sites. Inside trailer walls and locked into tool boxes on ordinary-seeming trucks. People who liked explosives were paranoid motherfuckers, and he knew how they thought.

Carol would never have to dig another grave, not if he could help it.

"It won't ever be safe," she said. "Not in this world."

Disappointment flooded in. "Then what you doing here?" If Alexandria wasn't safe, this little ranch house with its veneer paneling was nothing more than a matchbox waiting for a strike.

"Having less to lose," she said, her eyes bright blue and luminous.

"Don't matter how much you have, or how little. You lose, all the same." He looked away.

"Least here, I'll die on my terms."

Daryl flicked his eyes back to her face. "I know you. You'll die on your own terms, no matter where ya are."

She made her choices, same as he did. She may not like them. He sure didn't, mosta the time. But nobody was pulling their fucking strings but them. Weren't no different here than Alexandria, 'cept she didn't have to watch nobody die.

The memory of Glenn's head smeared across the ground, Maggie's sobs ringing in his ears drove him half mad, because Carol was right and entirely fucking wrong and he stalked right up onto her toes.

"Listen," he snarled. "Ya decide what you do, whatcha won't do. You don't like it, make it different next time. You _get_ to do that 'cause you ain't dead. I left people alive. Shouldn't have. You killed people when you didn't wanna. Then fine, don't kill 'em. Maybe gets you dead, someday. But you ain't dead yet. This the life you want?" He threw his arm out. "Books and graves? Got nobody. Nothin'."

She flinched, her face going tight.

"You wanna die on your own terms?" he growled, furious suddenly because that's very nearly what he had done. Until somebody left him a key, that's exactly what the fuck he had been planning on doing. And he hadn't even known she was missing. "Fine. But you ain't livin' on your own terms. This ain't you."

He glared at her, searingly, because he'd dreamed about this woman. Remembered her, talked to her in his head. Fantasized about her. And the whole time, she'd been gone. Disappearing into floral couches and ruffled curtains and nothing. Hadn't been thinking of him back. But he understood _that_. He didn't understand leaving your family. He didn't understand giving up.

Daryl walked out.

* * *

 _Author's Note: One more chapter to this one, folks. Maybe two. Gonna have to bust ass to get 'em out before Sunday._


	2. Chapter 2

Carol eased into the dark bedroom, her eyes scouring every corner. She wasn't breathing.

A naked man shot out of the bed, a long gleam of silver coming from the knife in his hand.

She didn't even flinch, just held her ground and waited for him to recognize her. There was only a little moonlight coming in the top of the window he'd shoved a bureau against, but Daryl wasn't the type to stab without looking, not even now.

He jerked to a stop halfway between her and the bed. She closed the door behind her. The guest hall was mostly empty, but Morgan's room was at the far end and he slept very lightly.

"Wouldn't have pegged you as a naked sleeper," she said.

"Fucking sweatsuit." He rubbed his eyes with the back of his knife hand, stumbling back toward the bed without even looking where he was going. "Itched all over. Can still feel it, all th' time."

He collapsed onto the mattress with an abrupt surrender of muscles that set her nerves jangling. He swiped for the sheet and missed once before he managed to sling a handful of it across his bare body. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him exhausted enough to not be self-conscious about his body. But even that wasn't quite as odd as what he'd just said.

"Why were you wearing a _sweatsuit_?"

"Why ya here?" he shot back without answering. His knife bounced onto the night table, nearly sliding off one side, and he threw an arm over his eyes. His bruised, sunken eyes. It had bound her lungs up in knots not to ask who hit him.

Someone was always hitting him. He'd had black eyes most of the time she'd known him, because if someone's fist was coming for their family, it would find Daryl's face first. That wasn't ever going to change, and she'd known it when she left.

She thought it would be easier if she didn't know when he died. Except even when he wasn't around, she couldn't stop thinking about him. All day, it would pop up in her head. Was this the hour when he died?

When he left her little graveyard house, it was as if he took all the air with him. She couldn't settle there, anymore. Couldn't find a single position where she could sit, stand or lay where she could rest. All she could think about was if she'd ever see him again.

She crossed the room, picked up the matchbook on the night table. Lit a match, then a candle. She moved his knife away from the edge so it wouldn't fall.

Carol sat on the mattress, the cheap springs sinking under both their weight. She waited until his arm fell away from his face and his eyes gleamed blue in the candlelight. "I don't know what I want," she said. "I can't live like Morgan does, holding back while everyone else does the dirty work. I can't..." Her voice cracked.

Daryl grunted, shifted on the bed. His hand twitched a little closer to hers.

Her throat squeezed tight, but she forced the words out as the first tear streaked down her cheek. "I missed you. Missed everyone, but…"

"C'mere." He hauled her down against his chest. Her legs were all twisted the wrong way and the bed was too small, but he was so warm and naked… It was impossible not to respond and _God_ she wanted to be held. Be small and helpless and light of responsibility again, if just for a second.

He didn't flinch back from the contact, didn't stiffen at all his skin against hers. She couldn't tell if he was too tired to react, or if this was one other change that she'd missed by abandoning Alexandria.

"What happened to you?" Carol whispered. She didn't mean just the barely healed wound in his shoulder, the old bruises on his face. "You're not like you were. You never _looked_ at me before. Not like that."

"Bad shit happened. Thought I's gonna die."

She tucked her hands underneath his body and hugged him tight. His pulse beat strong and heavy under her cheek and she was so grateful she went lightheaded for a minute.

What would be bad enough to make Daryl _believe_ he was going to die? He would run into a herd of walkers with their heads on fire without blinking. The only time she'd seen him scared, he was about to drop them and a van off a damn bridge to escape the teeth behind them.

He'd nearly died, and she hadn't been there. Hadn't even known anything was wrong. It's what she thought she wanted.

Turns out, not knowing was just as impossible to live with as murder.

She turned her head and pressed a kiss against the beat of his heart.

He froze.

A second later, his fingers grasped her chin, tipped it up until she was looking him in the face, and his expression was hard and soft and scared all at once.

"Don't," he said. "If you don't mean it, don't."

"It's not that I don't mean it." She wilted, her knees falling slack against his legs. "It's that I don't know _how_. Not in this world."

"You just do," he rasped. "Like Maggie and Glenn. Abraham and Sasha. Rick and Michonne."

His voice was odd when he said the names, and fresh fear chilled her though she couldn't have said why.

He propped himself up on an elbow, looked at her hard. "We got more 'cause we believed there was more left. When we took the prison. When we found Alexandria. Ain't safe right now. It will be again. We ain't done."

He let go of her chin, but now that he wasn't talking, he lay very still beneath her. He wouldn't make the choice for her. Daryl never would. Not even this new blunter, bolder version of him.

Carol's eyes fell, and all she could see was the pink target of healing skin on his shoulder. Her fingers traced it, imagining all too vividly the bloody hole that had been ripped through him.

"You have new scars," she said.

"Got shot."

"So did I." They'd been shot at around the same time, judging by the age of his scar.

"Heard. Shook Morgan's hand for what he did for you." His fingers settled against her side, knuckles just barely brushing the fabric of her shirt.

"You shouldn't have," she said. "He's haunted by having to kill. I hate that I was the cause of it." She laid her head down on his chest, because it was too much to hold it up just then. "I didn't want it," she whispered. "Wanted to die. Just couldn't seem to _let go._ "

"Me neither."

The rumble of his voice rippled through her head. He could have died any one of those hours they were apart. Still could. He kept saying it wasn't safe, and yet he was here, for some reason, without Rick or anyone else. The Saviors were clearly still around and bent on revenge. If Daryl left now, he might die before she ever saw him again.

She felt caged on every side by things she didn't want to do. Things she wasn't sure she _could_ do. She'd hesitated, with the Saviors, and it could have cost Maggie's life. But the tallest, the most impossible wall to scale was the idea of standing and walking out of this room, leaving Daryl behind and going back to that empty little house to wait out the rest of her days in grey-toned, tedious safety.

She couldn't leave him again; wouldn't.

Her pulse throttled so fast she could hardly breathe. She turned her head just enough to lay another kiss over the deep thump of his heart.

Daryl laid very, very still.

But then, it was always going to be up to her to make the first move. He wouldn't make her choices for her. He wasn't Ed.

She lifted the sheet from his waist and slipped underneath, then looked him in the eye. Dead on, the way he'd faced her.

"If I'm going to live," she said. "It's going to be on my terms. And for whatever time we have left, this is how I want to live."


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Okay, without spoilering anything about 7x10, let's just say that that episode was crazy emotionally intense and what I really need this morning to come down from it, is Caryl smut. I wrote this whole fic before the episode came out, and even though it isn't totally accurate to the episode (because come on, it has a happy ending, so it was never going to be accurate) I still like to imagine it going this way instead._

* * *

When Carol slipped beneath the sheets, Daryl's reaction was not what she was expecting.

He shifted his hips back from her, his swelling arousal brushing her cargo pants. But there was no space for him to retreat to, so he nudged right a little, which only pushed his erection against her hip. Then left, to the same result.

She cupped his cheek, meeting his eyes. "Hey," she said softly. He stopped squirming, but she could see worry creeping into his face.

"You sure 'bout this?" he said, his voice scraping.

She was not sure. She was scared to death that going after what she wanted most was just taunting God to take it all away. She nodded anyway, because she wasn't going to take it back. Just wasn't. Couldn't, with him looking at her like all his hope would live or die in her eyes.

But her nod didn't fix it. If anything, he went more motionless. Waiting with sharp eyes and stilled breath, and she didn't know what he needed from her. She'd made the first move, followed him all the way here and climbed right into his bed. Maybe he'd meant something different when he said "I know what I want."

God, what if he'd just meant he missed her friendship? Or that he wanted her to come back to Alexandria? She'd just broken into his room and crawled right on top of him when he wasn't dressed, this man who wouldn't so much as change his shirt without ducking behind a tree.

Shame slithered through her, but when she started to edge away, her movements sent a surge through his cock, hardening it further. Which made her remember; attraction had never been their problem. The step after that, however…

She took a breath and reminded herself she'd shed all her masks when she'd left the Kingdom. People could take her or leave her as she was: she didn't have time for that crap anymore. And none of her acts had ever fooled Daryl, anyhow.

"Just tell me what's wrong," she whispered. The shrinking in her stomach thought he might ask her to go. But her head said that wasn't it. It would be worse than simple rejection.

She moved to roll off him to lay at his side, but his hand landed on the small of her back, catching her shirt and a wad of sheet along with it. His Adam's apple bobbed.

"Just…ya gonna want to live here? 'S okay if you do. I'll—" He swallowed again. "I can…"

She waited, because she wasn't entirely sure what he was trying to say. She took a breath to encourage him, but for the first time ever, he beat her to it.

"I don't wanna leave Rick 'n them." He said it so plainly she could feel it like a line drawn between them. "Don't know if you left because of him. Rick said ya wrote a note but he didn't have it on him."

She frowned. That was odd. Why wouldn't Daryl have read her note by now? She left it in Tobin's house, but that's just because she couldn't sneak in and out of the one where Daryl lived without risking him stopping her.

"I tried to leave 'em before, with Merle, and then the whole time when I was—" he broke off. "Ain't good for me, being away. Was going to go with you, after he put ya out, but didn't get a chance because of the Governor and now…" He shook his head. "Don't want to leave 'em. But if you don't want to live there, maybe we could—"

She touched his lips. "Hey. We can go back. It's okay."

There was no one she loved more than Daryl, no one she'd protect more fiercely. If she was going to let him in, she might as well let them all in. She was queasy with fear at the thought but she'd seen the alternative, and it was quiet as a grave. Despite what she'd told Morgan, she wasn't sure how much longer she could live like that.

She tilted her head, reading all the little gaps in what he'd told her. Daryl wasn't used to lying, and he wasn't particularly good at it. "You going to tell me what happened?"

"When it's over," he said. "I'll come back here, after. Might not hurt for you to find a place a little further off the road."

She gave him a look.

"Ya didn't want this fight," he said immediately. "Let us do it. One person one way or 'nother ain't gonna change nothin'."

"In these things, it always comes down to one person. And none of us ever know who it's going to be." She brushed his hair out of his eyes. "Daryl. I'm coming with you." She'd left his back unguarded long enough. It was when they were apart that he'd always come the closest to dying.

He gave the barest of nods, as if he hadn't really expected anything else. But he wasn't meeting her eyes. "Can I tell ya tomorrow?"

"Yeah." Her stomach clenched against the endless, terrible possibilities of what might have happened. Who might have been lost. Tomorrow was too soon. And yet she'd already had so much more stolen, blissfully ignorant time than Daryl or anyone else. Than Rick, who would feel the weight the most of all of them. He was still alive; she could tell from what Daryl had said.

The heat of his naked body was seeping through her clothes, waking all her skin with a restless sort of awareness that she gladly let distract her from her dark thoughts. His face, his battered, terribly dear face was so close to hers. His jaw blunt and honest, his eyes that heartrending combination of brave and uncertain that they'd always been.

"So…" Her smile went wry. "Do you want me to get off you?"

"Nah."

A hint of ruddy flush lit his cheekbones, but he didn't hesitate in his answer, and the hand he had clenched at the small of her back moved lower. Slowly. Painfully slowly like he was either waiting for her to stop him or hoping she wouldn't notice. It reached the upward slope just above the curve of her ass, and paused. So close she couldn't help but wriggle a little.

"You sure?" she asked. "Because most of the time I've been up here, you've been looking at me like a bear trap just closed on your foot."

His thumb swept up and down. It was the tiniest movement against her spine but she could feel it as if it were leaving neon-bright lines behind everywhere he'd touched.

"Ain't felt nothin' good in long time. Ain't used to it."

She caught her breath. She knew exactly what he meant. And she loved that to him, _she_ was something good.

"So does that mean I can…?" Her gaze flickered to his lips. She kept her voice light and half-teasing, because that was the way he'd always dealt best with her flirting, even when she was dead serious.

He licked his bottom lip, so fast she didn't think she knew he was doing it, and she couldn't even wait for his nod. She just dropped her head and chased his tongue back into his mouth. His lips were tattered and rough, like he'd been chewing them, and she tried to be careful with him, but all that got lost when his tongue tentatively touched hers, then laved over it eagerly like she was a flavor he'd been waiting for. He let out a little hopeful grunt and her nipples drew hard. The heat of him felt like it was transforming her whole body. Softening it and making her achy and tense all at the same time.

She withdrew, leaving one last smiling kiss on the mouth of her closest friend, and then met his eyes from nearer than they'd ever been before. "Well," she said, because _goodness._

The corners of his eyes crinkled, his mouth gentling in his subtle version of a smile. But his hand was still pressing chastely against her back, and she thought he wasn't going to push for a single thing unless she made it perfectly clear what she wanted.

Carol reached behind her and caught his hand, moving it firmly onto the swell of her bottom. His big palm gripped her, pulling her into his body. Sensation shot through her, but before she could even get used to that, he rolled over her.

The sheets tangled around both their bodies, her shoulder blades pressed into the narrow bed by the surprising weight of him. His hard thighs had landed between hers, and the newly-sensitive insides of her legs clenched against his bare hips. His abs flexed and with a little growl, he shoved against her, hard enough to send her sliding a few inches up the mattress, the line of his erection burning thick against the center of her. His hair tickled her face as he bent his head, pressing uneven kisses to her cheekbone and her ear, his tongue and teeth tugging at one of the tiny earrings she'd always worn.

Her nipples prickled so hard she had to arch her back and rub them into his chest for a little relief, because his tongue was circling her earring, playing with it not so much like a sensual technique he'd learned, but like it was something he'd always wanted to do. It felt, weirdly, like he was hugging her hello but in a different way than before.

Her clothes were too steamy, clinging itchily to her skin and she wished she could just tear them off without Daryl having to pause anything that he was doing.

For all the times she'd had forbidden, embarrassing dreams about him, or daydreamed how it might be between them, she'd somehow never quite guessed how the raw, instinctual physicality of him might take over once he was sure she wanted him.

His knees pushed hers farther open as he strained closer to her, all the sinewy muscles of him tight and flexing. He was a little too rough, a little too powerful like he didn't realize his own strength, and it was exactly what she wanted. Right now, with the whole world in flux around them, she needed to feel his strength.

Carol locked her booted feet behind him and held him close with her legs, her head falling back against the pillow.

"Yes, yes, yes," she murmured on every unsteady exhale. She'd never been very vocal in bed, but she wanted Daryl to hear her. Didn't want him to have even an instant where he doubted himself or how much she wanted him, because she loved the purity of what he was doing to her right now. He was acting completely on instinct, his tongue as aggressive and uninhibited as it was when he was sucking his fingers clean, his movements muscular and animalistic.

He held his weight off her on his forearms, his biceps bulging on either side of her head so she felt completely safe, utterly wrapped up in him. His hair was clean, so she knew he'd hit the Kingdom's bath house, but that dark, earthy musk that always rode his skin was still there and she inhaled it like it was a cologne made out of undiluted pheromones. That scent had always made her feel secure, calmed her breathing and trailed a sparkling thrill all the way down between her legs. But now, she had the surge of his erection to press against, to tame that tingling feeling into a richer, deeper burn.

Daryl reared back a little, shoving her shirt up off her head. She kept up her moaning, murmuring assents peppered with his name and he made an urgent sound through his teeth and yanked her bra up over her head, too. The elastic twisted and bit for a second because he hadn't unfastened it, but then it was gone and his hand covered one of her small breasts, his head and long hair stroking over the other one as he nuzzled her, scraping his teeth softly over the inner curve.

She hooked her feet around his legs, shaking all over as she gasped and pressed closer to him. She wanted his mouth on her nipples and his cock rubbing against her, and irrationally, she wanted all that at the same time.

" _Daryl_."

Every time she said his name, a deep shiver ran through him. Suddenly, she remembered him saying that his skin itched all over, that he couldn't stand clothes since…something about a sweatsuit. She stroked her palms over his broad shoulders, crossing the ridges of scars as she caressed his whole back, and his mouth got ever more urgent against her breasts.

"Carol," he half-groaned, and suddenly, she understood exactly why he liked her saying his name.

She ducked, curling up her body so she could kiss his neck. He jerked, half-falling on her before he caught his weight on quivering arms. She combed his long hair out of the way and kissed his pulse again, this time trailing just the tip of her tongue over it.

He muttered something and she hummed a questioning sound so he'd repeat it, as she nuzzled her nose against the delicious scent of him.

"Can ya…do that again?"

She grinned at his breathless question and rewarded him with a long, broad swipe of her tongue, giving his neck the dirtiest kiss she could conjure out of tiny bites and licks and pure loving mischief.

He shuddered so hard she wasn't sure at first if he'd just lost control, but then he reached for her pants, yanking at the button. Then he stopped.

"Can we— Do you want to— We don't—"

"God, are you kidding?" She pushed his hands out of the way and lifted her hips, wiggling out of her pants—awkwardly since he was half laying on her and completely in the way and every time her hand brushed the huge line of his cock she lost the ability to concentrate on what she was doing.

"Ain't got a—"

"Tubes tied," she gasped, shoving against his chest to get him out of the way so she could deal with her boots. She was way too turned on to try to think of a ladylike way to say it.

He fell onto his side as she started to tear blindly at her bootlaces with her panties and cargo pants caught all bunched around her ankles. Instead of helping her, he kissed her hip. All exploring tongue and soft, reverent lips. Tears hit her eyes.

"Dammit, Daryl," she whispered, the center of her chest giving a sharp ache.

He stopped. Because of course he did, the dear, sweet man.

"Mm?" He rumbled the question and she shook her head, getting one boot off and tossing it off the bed.

"It's okay. Don't stop."

His mouth came back to her hip and his fingers traced a gentle line around the back of her thigh, toward the center of her—

Her thoughts clashed into blackness and blinding light when he touched her. She'd been kicking her socked foot out of her pants while trying to untie her second boot, and she lost all coordination in an instant.

His fingers were hesitating and awestruck as he touched her, dipping into the slickest, wettest places as if he couldn't quite believe her reaction to him. She sucked in a breath and didn't move at all. He touched her again, going a little more deeply as he gained confidence.

Her knees fell open and she lost track of where her arms were. His fingertips moved up higher. Shyly, shaking just the tiniest bit in a way that made it feel even better. When he bumped her clit, her legs jerked closed on his hand and she had to swallow a scream. But a second later she opened to him again, rolling against his hand to ask for more. Daryl lay his head against her inner thigh, watching what he was doing with a quiet focus that made her heart give an odd little flutter.

She was already so far gone and now the tension in her jacked up so quickly that she found herself panting, her hips lifting off the mattress without her meaning to do it, like her body couldn't help but beg for more from him.

"Daryl, _Daryl_ —"

His fingers kept touching right where she needed, and then slipping by too fast and she was going to go stark raving mad if he didn't— She grabbed his hand, pressing his broad, calloused palm between her legs and then arching up against it as her pleasure finally crested, releasing in bursting waves that left her sobbing out each breath.

He bit her. On the tingling inside of her leg, all blunt teeth scraping and tongue demanding, his breath hot and wild against her skin. Then his hand disappeared as he surged up over her body and thrust into her.

She was tight after all those months of no sex, and every inner muscle she had was clamping closed with the waves of her orgasm. He had to buck hard to get inside, grunting through his teeth as he forced the swollen head of his cock into her. Every inch he advanced intensified her climax, giving her inner muscles something to clench around. She opened her mouth, but she'd exhaled all her air and forgotten to take in more, so it came out utterly soundless.

Her legs locked around his back, one boot still on and her pants dangling from that ankle and slapping his bare as ass it flexed and strained, stroking his cock into her in a pounding, jerky rhythm.

"Shit, damn, _fuck_ ," he groaned into her ear. Was he coming already? It'd been a long time and he was just as revved up as she was… Before she could be certain, he ripped out of her.

Carol blinked, her body still clenching around the emptiness where he'd filled her only a second ago, and then he dove down, burrowing his mouth in between her legs.

He'd never been the least fastidious, and now he didn't hesitate at all as he licked her right where his cock had just been. He gripped her thighs in his strong, hunter's hands and went after her with broad, untutored licks. He wasn't gentle either, and she was still so close to her last orgasm that she had to jerk his pillow over her face and scream into it, her thighs clamping down around his head when he sent her crashing into an climax so intense it hurt.

Just like he had before, he drove himself into her as soon as she started to come, catching the clenching waves of her pleasure on his swollen cock. This time, though, he straddled one of her legs and hitched the other one up around his hip, which left her open for his pubic bone to bump her clit when he started in on his powerful, full body thrusts.

Carol threw an arm up over her head, bracing against the wall between the bars of the headboard, and thanked God she had the upper body strength to counter him because Daryl fucked like he fought: with absolutely everything he had in him. Deep, animal sounds tore from his throat, and the only part of him that was gentle were his hands: one cradling her thigh, the other holding her hip.

He hit a new angle inside her and lights burst deep in her head. Her arm went limp and she heard a thump as his hand slammed into the wall, pressing back enough that he didn't knock her head into the headboard as he hammered into that deep, secret place that felt so good and satisfying that her mouth went dry and she lost track of if she was making sounds or moving or anything about what was happening around them.

All she knew was how the feeling inside her changed when he pulsed thicker and then exploded with a guttural shout and a rush of heat. How the warmth inside her was all around her now because he'd fallen forward, his chest covering hers. His breath tickled her jaw as he gasped and left uneven, thoughtless kisses all over that side of her face. Her last orgasm still fluttered through her, squeezing against his softening cock where he still lay within her.

She wrapped her arms over him and let him kiss her, his thick, trembling arms resting against her body. "I love you, Daryl Dixon," she whispered into the tangled strands of his hair. "I—"

A knock rattled the door in its frame.

Daryl stiffened, his relaxed arms clamping protectively around her. His head came up.

"Daryl," Morgan called softly through the door. "Wake up. You're having a nightmare."

Carol slumped with relief that it wasn't a warning of attack. Morgan had done the same when she was recovering in this guest wing. If he heard her screaming, or crying, he'd never come inside. Not after the first time when she'd nearly stabbed him to death before she'd been all the way awake. No, he just knocked and called out to wake her, then left her in peace. A twinge of reluctant affection twisted in her for the quiet man.

Daryl looked down at her, his hand moving to cradle her head.

"Nah," he called back, low and gruff, but his eyes never left her. "I'm a'right, now."

 **The End**


End file.
